People: Country trio earn Hall of Fame honors

Bobby Bare (from left), Kenny Rogers and Jack Clement will be honored at a ceremony later this year for their induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Photo: Mark Humphrey / Associated Press

Country trio earn Hall of Fame honors

Kenny Rogers, Bobby Bare and Jack Clement are the newest members of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

The trio of trailblazing inductees attended a news conference Wednesday at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum to announce the class of 2013.

Each had a significant impact on country music in his own way, helping spread the genre far beyond its traditional borders.

With songs such as the omnipresent “The Gambler,” “Lucille” and the Lionel Richie-produced “Lady,” Rogers was both a pop-music crossover and a pop-culture sensation in the 1970s and '80s. He starred in TV movies in the role of The Gambler, helped country cross over into the pop world and with his trademark white hair and beard remains one of music's most recognizable figures. He was inducted in the modern era category.

An artist and producer, “Cowboy” Jack Clement played a crucial role in the history of rock 'n' roll, working as a producer and engineer at Sun Records during an era when acts such as Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley changed the way we listen to music.

He produced Cash's iconic “Ring of Fire,” adding the mariachi horns that became the song's signature. He sent Jerry Lee Lewis away, his daughter said in an acceptance speech she read for her father, because he was singing the songs of others. He instructed the future rock 'n' roll legend to find his own sound before he came back.

Clement joined Cash and Presley in the Hall of Fame Wednesday, entering in the non-performer category.

And Bare, inducted in the veterans era, charted his own path after being signed by Chet Atkins. Once a roommate of Willie Nelson, he emulated the freethinking outlaw movement, though never actually joined it, by inspiring his contemporaries to move freely from country to pop and rock, and back again.

“Did I do that?” Bare joked after hearing his biography read.

Rogers, Bare and Clement will be formally inducted in a ceremony later this year.

MTV cancels show after star's death

MTV said Wednesday it is canceling its West Virginia-based reality TV show “BUCKWILD” a week after the accidental death of 21-year-old star Shain Gandee.

“But given Shain's tragic passing and essential presence on the show, we felt it was not appropriate to continue without him,” the network said. “Instead, we are working on a meaningful way to pay tribute to his memory on our air and privately.”

On Sunday, MTV will air a special, “BUCKWILD: WV to the NYC,” which was shot before second-season filming had begun. The network said Shain's parents, Dale and Loretta Gandee, support the move.

Gandee and two others were found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning on April 1. Gandee's SUV was stuck in a mud pit near his home in Sissonville, its tail pipe submerged. That could have allowed the invisible gas to fill the vehicle's cabin.